Yamaha CFX Triumphs at 16th international Chopin competition

Russia’s brilliant Yulianna Avdeeva and Yamaha‘s acclaimed CFX concert grand piano took centre stage at the 2010 International Frédéric Chopin Piano Competition as the outstanding 25-year-old pianist took first prize at the highly prestigious event. Yulianna personally selected the CFX for her prize-winning performance in Warsaw on 19th October.
Held over a three-week period every five years in the Polish capital, the competition is the oldest of its kind and is avidly followed by classical music lovers all over the world. The selection of a Yamaha CFX concert grand by a prize-winning performer, therefore, is a considerable accolade and a global milestone both for the instrument and for Yamaha’s dedicated craftsmen and design team. It builds on the success of this exceptional instrument at the Chopin competition in the USA earlier this year.
As this year’s Chopin competition coincides with the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth in Warsaw in 1810, it has attracted particularly strong international interest. What better time, then, for the Yamaha concert grand to reach the pinnacle of world-class concert performance?
The 2010 competition was characterized by the high quality of its performances and it was after lengthy late night deliberations that the jury, which features several world-famous pianists including Martha Argerich and Kevin Kenner, chose Yulianna Avdeeva from the ten finalists. She received the Gold Medal, a laurel wreath, and 30,000 Euros. In addition, Yulianna was awarded the Krystian Zimerman prize for best sonata (12,000 €).
Yulianna impressed the judges and drew a standing ovation from the audience with a highly expressive and mature performance of Chopin’s Concerto in E minor. The pianist studied in Moscow and is currently working as an assistant to a Russian professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Zurich.
A Yamaha CFX was also played by the fourth prize winning pianist Evgeni Bozhanov from Bulgaria, as well as being used by two of the four finalists who received distinctions.